In 2008 I modified our haunted attract into the Christmas Nightmare. You would come to the farm and before entering the barn maze you had to state whether you were naughty or nice this year. If NAUGHTY, the maze was filled with crazed elves and an Evil Santa. If NICE, the elves were friendly had candy at each location and you were able to sit on Santa's lap , tell him your Christmas wishes and then return to the front for hot chocolate. In either case you had to find Santa in the maze as he was hidden. There were also the characters in the maze from the Nightmare Before Xmas. All skeletons and pumpkins had on Santa hats, presents and tress were throughout along with snow machines. The attendance was low. I did some advertising on radio and flyers, but I wanted to get a feel for the customers. This year during our haunt we did surveys just for a couple nights. For those that did fill out the haunt surveys 80% said they would visit the farm for other holidays than Halloween. Alot of people are saying I should not mix Halloween and Christmas. I need some help here. I really think this would go but with the economy I am not sure this is the time. What are your thoughts on the Nice or Naughty theme or should it stay strictly Christmas (maybe a Scrooge type ad the story moves through multiple rooms telling the story). Any other ideas>

I like the idea of both naughty and nice. There are us horror fans and haunted house fans who would love going through something like this during the hum drum boring two months of the Christmas season! Is it me or does it come sooner every year. Im sick of it already!
Damon

The overhead is not bad you are taking down all the bloody and gorey props hanging Christmas bulbs etc. Switch out snow for fog. All costumes for the elves stay the same they can just now jump out and scare. The only idfference would be the candy if nice and the face on Santa.

KEEP CHRISTMAS ALONE!!! Or at least for me it means snow and cold is not far around the corner.

Christmas is more geard for children and spending time with family. Santa and the Easter Bunny do their own thing, I would never put these two icons in the mix with Halloween because of what they stand for in our childrens eyes. WE ALL KNOW YOUNG KIDS GO TO HAUNTS AND WE LOOK AT THEIR PARENTS AND THINK, SHOULD THEY BE HERE???

We don't need to put scary thoughts in their heads, keep it "clean and cute". Halloween is for the scary stuff!!!

Pulling a seasonal switcher-roo if you were an October "Butcher Shop", then the feature a joyous Santa and a "Family" celebrational...(Manson Family?)
We have never had blood & gutz here just odd , artistic and haunted .
Think of all the holiday storys with a Ghost of Christmas Past, ex cetra...
We hear many ask in October if we will be open during the day or night of Thanksgiving , Christmas Eve or New Years Eve?
Then the weather turns into Winter and nobody shows up..so soon they forget.
From previous posts concerning making money in December by making your Haunt a Christmas production...it seems to me not much money was ever seen from such efforts?
You get Grandpa & Grandma spending $2--$3 a person to treat a Grandchild or two and that's about it.
Of course anything can be made to "Work" if you work long and hard at it.
Everything takes "Time".
The scariest thing in my spooky kitchen for these last couple of years is my "Santa". There could be a whole roomfull of people, all ages and Nobody wants to get within 8 to 10 feet of him.
He's a latex mask pulled over the upright end of an ironing board, leaning against the corner .
He scares a great number of people .